Nelson W Angang said MA63 was the very foundation of Malaysia, hence giving one-third of Dewan Rakyat seats to Sabah and Sarawak, as well as Singapore, at the time was aimed at safeguarding their rights and privileges.

This was to ensure Malaya could not amend the constitution without the buy-in of these states, he said.

While former EC deputy chairman Wan Ahmad Wan Omar said the distribution of parliamentary seats should be premised on fairness, Angang said fulfilling MA63 would be doing just that.

“In 1965, our constitutional provision regarding the number of parliamentary seats for Sabah, Sarawak and Malaya was amended after Singapore left the federation.

“This resulted in the number of parliamentary seats formerly belonging to Singapore being given to Malaya, without regard to the intention and reason why it was distributed in such a way in the first place when Malaysia was formed,” he said in a statement.

Wan Ahmad had agreed that Sabah and Sarawak may be entitled to more representation under MA63, but ruled out increasing their share to one-third of the seats in the Dewan Rakyat.

He said the Federal Constitution’s 13th Schedule laid out four main principles that guide the EC in any delineation exercise, with demographics – population size and the number of electors – being the key consideration.

Citing Section 2(c) of the schedule, he said the number of electors in each constituency must be “approximately equal”, with the EC allowed to use its discretion only to take into account factors such as the size and terrain of an area.

Angang, the Upko secretary-general, said this argument contradicted current realities in urban areas in Peninsular Malaysia.

He pointed out that the Bangi parliamentary seat in Selangor had 311,499 voters in 2023, but the Lenggong and Padang Rengas federal seats in Perak only had 36,950 and 38,686 electors, respectively, the same year.

“I cannot see this as ‘approximately equal’ by any definition. And there are many more parliamentary seats that are very disproportionate,” he said.

Last week, deputy prime minister Fadillah Yusof said Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had agreed in principle to consider increasing the number of parliamentary seats in Sabah and Sarawak.

But Fadillah said legal issues arising from the “differing views” held by the respective attorneys-general of Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak must first be resolved before the matter is tabled in Cabinet.